Greg Kostraba

Content Director

February 16, 2009 marked the beginning of my second go-around at WBAA. I worked here as a Program Host/Producer from 1995 to 2001, hosting classical music, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and the weekly 20th-century classical music series “The Kostraba Conundrum.” After a short stint as Program Director at a public radio station in Kansas, I moved with my family to Toledo to serve as Classical Music Director at WGTE-FM, staying for seven years. One of my highlights there was winning the 2007 Ohio Public Broadcasting Award for "Radio Producer of the Year" for my monthly in-studio performance program “Live From FM 91” and special programs celebrating the lives and music of composers William Grant Still and Samuel Adler.

Aside from my family, my passion in life is playing the piano. I have master’s and doctoral degrees in piano performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and was a semifinalist at the Fourth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in 2004. You may have heard me on Performance Today playing In a Mist by Bix Beiderbecke from the New Harmony Music Festival & School or William Grant Still’s Kaintuck’with the Toledo Symphony. Perhaps you have seen me as soloist with the Lafayette and Purdue Symphony Orchestras, or performing chamber music on the Tippecanoe Chamber Music Society series. I have also been included on several recordings: the Toledo Clarinets premiere CD on the Cambria label, two recordings of music by Rick Sowash on the composer’s own label, and a release by my horn trio Quelque Chose on Kickshaw Records. (A record by the Sylvan Trio, my ensemble with flutist and Sunday Baroque host Suzanne Bona and cellist Josh Aerie, should be out by the end of 2017.) My favorite gig, though, may have been playing on a weekly basis in the Rusty’s Jazz Café Big Band in Toledo with my late father, the bandleader Dan Terry, in the audience.

WBAA's Greg Kostraba recently talked to the Wabash Valley Youth Symphony's Artistic Director José Valencia, and two soloists from the orchestra, about Sunday's WVYS Concerto Competition Winners concert, which takes place Sunday at 7 at the Long Center for the Performing arts in downtown Lafayette.

The Lafayette Chamber Singers will present their annual Afternoon Delight concert Sunday, February 8th at 3 p.m. at Duncan Hall, 619 Ferry Street in Downtown Lafayette, with sweets, poetry and music of love on the program. Artistic Director Clayton Lein talks with Greg Kostraba about the program.

The Tippecanoe Chamber Music Society presents four of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerts Sunday afternoon at St. John’s Episcopal Church in downtown Lafayette. WBAA’s Greg Kostraba recently sat down with the group’s Executive Director Margot Marlatt to talk about the concert.

The Lafayette Chamber Singers will present their Holiday Noel Concert Sunday, December 14th at 3 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Church, West Lafayette. Artistic Director Clayton Lein talks with Greg Kostraba about the program

This Thursday, November 27th, tune into WBAA to accompany your Thanksgiving Day activities.

From 8 to 10 a.m. on WBAA Classical on 101.3 FM, join John Birge for Giving Thanks: A Celebration of Fall, Food & Gratitude. This year, we remember Maya Angelou, Garrison Keillor reads a poem, and Nikki Giovanni recalls the Thanksgiving she got kicked out of college!

WBAA's Greg Kostraba recently sat down with Nick Palmer, Music Director of the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra to talk about the orchestra's "Shaken, Not Stirred" concert, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Lafayette.